The ghost of Sheldon Adelson can rest easy as the company he shephereded for many years, Las Vegas Sands, is once again forsaking online gambling.
This week, the Las Vegas Review-Journal broke the news that the parent company is winding down LV Sands Digital, its online arm that was launched in 2021.
Apollo Global Management and REIT group VICI Properties purchased Las Vegas Sands in 2022, roughly a year after announcing the deal. With the transition, Apollo thought it an appropriate time to get the company involved in the world of online gaming.
Rather than take a B2C approach, LV Sands Digital was intended to be a B2B organization offering live dealer services to online casinos at an international scale. However, it appears no deal ever reached the point of launch.
As a result of the closure, roughly 400 employees will be out of work, including approximately 150 based in Nevada.
“As has always been the entrepreneurial approach of our company, investments in SDS were made with the understanding there would be multiple points in the process where we would assess the most pragmatic path forward,” Sands President and Chief Operating Officer Patrick Dumont wrote in a letter to affected staffers earlier this month, per the LVRJ.
“The digital landscape continues to evolve, and technology and innovation will continue to play an important role in our industry. As a company, we will continue to explore and invest in opportunities that are in the best interests of our shareholders.”
In the letter, Dumont indicated the continued focus of LV Sands on core Asian markets such as Macau and Singapore.
For years, Las Vegas Sands not only did not participate in online gambling but Adelson actually actively campaigned against online gaming expansion in the United States. In 2014, Adelson founded the Coalition to Stop Internet Gambling and was also said to be involved in the push to get the Trump administration’s Department of Justice to issue new guidance on how it interpreted the Wire Act in 2018.
Even though Adelson passed in 2021, the anti-igaming DNA of the company carries on. For example, LV Sands was bearish on pushing too hard for a downstate brick and mortar casino license in New York in part because of concerns that the state could legalize online casinos in the near future.
